ANY suggestion that lorry driver Reginald Southall committed suicide by throwing himself in the river at Stourport was "ludicrous," a murder trial jury was told today.

Prosecution QC Tim Raggett also dismissed the theory that the 62-year-old lorry driver, who could not swim, had been the victim of "a dreadful accident."

In his closing speech at Worcester Crown Court, he alleged that murder had been carried out to cover up the passion which Mr Southall's wife and her co-accused, Michael Whitcombe, had for each other.

Mr Raggett said it was "farcical" to suggest that anyone else other than the accused was responsible for Mr Southall's death.

Muriel Southall, aged 60, of Redstone Lane, Stourport, and Whitcombe, 59, of Worcester Road, Stourport, deny murder and trying to pervert justice by making false statements to the police.

The prosecution allege that they were having an affair which started on the caravan park in Stourport where they both lived for a time and that Mr Southall was killed so that they could get hold of his money.

Mr Raggett dismissed a possible verdict of manslaughter. He said that any badly injured man put in the Severn on a bitterly cold winter's day was meant to die.

Mr Southall disappeared in December 2007 after going for walk on the riverside and his body was not recovered from the water until 12 days later.

During her evidence in two days in the witness box, Muriel Southall agreed that she had had sex with Whitcombe in his mobile home after her husband's funeral.

She denied that a sexual affair had been going on before her husband's death.

The trial continues.